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I find myself, probably like many of you, spending way too much
time in front of my computer.

When I do face-to-face meetings, my colleagues and I typically
met around some conference table, sometimes at an airport lounge
(nothing like getting the most out of a long layover), and quite
often at coffee shops (hello Starbucks!).

But that means that the most common denominator across all these
locations wasn't the desk, or, the keyboard, or even the coffee.
The common denominator in the modern workday is our, um, tush.

As we work, we sit more than we do anything else. We're averaging
9.3 hours a
day, compared to 7.7 hours of sleeping. Sitting is so
prevalent and so pervasive that we don't even question how much
we're doing it. And, everyone else is doing it also, so it
doesn't even occur to us that it's not okay. In that way, I've
come to see that sitting is the smoking of our generation.

Of course, health studies conclude that people should sit less,
and get up and move around. After 1 hour of sitting, the
production of enzymes that burn fat declines by as much as 90%.
Extended sitting slows the body's metabolism affecting things
like (good cholesterol) HDL levels in our bodies. Research shows
that this
lack of physical activity is directly tied to 6% of the
impact for heart diseases, 7% for type 2 diabetes, and 10% for
breast cancer, or color cancer.

You might already know that the death rate associated with
obesity in the US is now
35 million. But do you know what it is in relationship to
Tobacco? Just 3.5 million. The New York Times reported on another
study, published last year in the journal Circulation
that looked at nearly 9,000 Australians and found that for
each additional hour of television a person sat and watched per
day, the risk of dying rose by 11%. In that article,
a doctor is quoted as saying that excessive sitting, which he
defines as nine hours a day, is a lethal activity.

So four years ago, I made a simple change when I switched one
meeting from a coffee meeting to a walking-meeting. I liked it so
much it became a regular addition to my calendar; I now average
four such meetings, and 20 to 30 miles each week. Today it's
life-changing, but it happened almost by accident.

My fundamental problem with exercise has always been this: it
took time away from other more "productive things." Going to the
gym to take care of me (vs. companies, colleagues, family) seemed
selfish. My American-bred Puritan work ethic nearly always won
out. Only when I realized I could do both at the same time, by
making exercise part of the meeting, did I finally start to get
more exercise. This is one of those 2-for-1 deals. I'm not
sacrificing my health for work, nor work for fitness. And maybe
that's why making fitness a priority finally doesn't feel like a
conflict. It's as easy as stepping out the door and might require
as much as a change of shoes.

And, yet, it's true that some people will turn you down. Probably
30% of the people I ask to do these kinds of meetings say that
they are not fit enough to do a walking meeting. I had one person
tell me afterwards that they got more active for an entire month
before our meeting, so as to not embarrass themselves on their
hike with me. I don't judge the people who won't do a hiking
meeting, and in most cases will choose to do another type of
meeting with them (lunch or whatever) but I am also reminded of
James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis's research from their
related book,
Connected.

They observed that obesity spreads according to network effects;
if your friend's friend's friend who lives a thousand miles away
gains weight, you're likely to gain weight, too. And if that
extended friend also loses weight, even if you're not in the same
city, you're likely to lose weight, too. My goal is to be someone
who socializes the idea that physical activity matters, and that
we each matter enough to take care of our health.

And after a few hundred of these meetings, I've started
noticing some unanticipated side benefits. First, I can
actually listen better when I am walking next to someone than
when I'm across from them in some coffee shop. There's something
about being side-by-side that puts the problem or ideas before
us, and us working on it together.

And, finally we almost always end the hike joyful. The number one
thing I've heard people say (especially if they've resisted this
kind of meeting in the past) is "That was the most creative time
I've had in a long time" And that could be because we're outside,
or a result of walking.
Research certainly says that
walking is good for the brain.

I've learned that if you want to get out of the box
thinking, you need to literally get out of the box. When
you step outside, you give yourself over to nature, respecting
its cycles and unpredictability. It keeps me more awake to what
is happening around me by experiencing the extreme heats of
summer, or the frigid power of winter. It makes me present to the
world around me instead of being insulated from it.

To keep this commitment — to myself and to others — I've marked
off certain times on my calendar for these meetings. I block off
two morning appointments (when I can take a shower afterwards)
and two end-of-day appointments for hiking meetings. I try and
schedule these slots before scheduling "regular" sitting meetings
because it means I have no excuse to not move that day and it
helps me be more awake during the day or less zombie-like (and
still-thinking-about-my-inbox) going into the evening. On the
rare days when someone bails on a hike last minute, I typically
still head out for the time, and I find myself hearing even my
own voice more clearly.